Unfortunately after driving a bit more my brakes went back to being poor, so after triple checking all the pipework I decided to replace the master cylinder. After a bit of searching, I found one that was the right bore on ebay, and it was chrome as well so will look pretty. After bench bleeding it, I fitted it and started bleeding again. The rears were perfect, but I could not get the fronts to push out much fluid with the bleeders open. I re-bled the master and gave it another go but still wasnt moving much fluid at the front. A quick test and I could lock one of the fronts, and the car stops better than ever but I’m not convinced they are working as well as they could. A check of the pin to master distance with some play-doh showed it to be about a mm out so I’m at a loss what can be doing it now. 
I’d well and truly had enough of messing with brake fluid, including emptying a container over myself coming out from under the car, so decided to have a tidy up of some of the loose wiring instead. I cut the fuel pump relay feed down to the right length, and gaffer taped all the rear loom down. I did the same inside the car and re-connected the reversing lights while I was at it. I also made a bracket for the inner wing to hold it in place as it was missing and did some general tidying up. Not exactly a great day but I’m getting somewhere at least. 
Category Archives: Bel-Air
Brakes that work without Prayer
I decided against leaving the brakes as they were and started looking at what I could do to improve them. After a bit of research I decided on either a dual 7″ or a 9″ to replace the existing booster. After a few emails I got hold of a dual 7″ in the UK so I was set for the weekend to work on it. The original one came off without any hassle, but was slow going due to not being able to get a spanner into the bracket and only turning about half a flat at a time. With the master tied up out of the way I did a quick test fit of the new one.
No problems fitting it on the outside, but the rod that connects to the clevis was about 3″ or so too short. I had a dig through my big washing up bowl of old bolts looking for an NF bolt to weld on with no luck. I did find a joiner sleeve though, so decided to use a long bolt with thread on about a third of it and cut it down to suit. I cut a new thread, and after a little trimming screwed it all togetherand put it on for a test fit. The bottom two bolts needed trimming slighlty, but apart from that it all went together easily if a little slowly. A quick test by driving in and out of the garage and they are superb. The only downside is the Procharger inlet is too close to use the rubber pipe I had previously, so the plan of making a U shape to bring the filter up alongside will have to come forward a bit. I had planned to do this so I wasnt drawing hot air from above the headers, just not yet. I’ll get the measurements to Zane and see what he can do.
It’s Passed the MOT
I bought all the bits to rebuild the 4L60-E and was waiting for a slot with Zannetec to get it built when I blew the 3/4 clutches on the Camaro. That left me with two identically broken gearboxes, one rebuild slot and one set of parts. As the Camaro is my daily, that got done first leaving the ’55 to wait for another slot and some more parts. It finally got it’s slot a week ago and was collected on a trailer for it’s rebuild. While Zane had it, he made me a parking brake arm so that they worked correctly which left it ready for it’s MOT test, the last but one stage before getting it on the road and driving it legally.
Zane offered to take it to the MOT station for me before he brought it back, which suited me perfectly. I’d forgotten to put the motor on the washer jets but apart from that it needed nothing else before he took it in. That’s the MOT tester’s son at the wheel, who now wants to get a ’55 Bel Air!. It also passed its braking efficiency test, and heres a camera phone video to prove it, but you have to use a lot of muscle to stop it neatly with the single diaphragm 7″ booster. When I got home from work, the certificate and the car were waiting for me. I tidied up the garage and put it away before testing the brand new S&P alternator and declaring it dead. It’s removed ready to get it rebuilt which I’ll hopefully get done in the next week, along with replacing the booster and getting the registration done. Feels great to be getting somewhere with it again after a long wait.
Half a Gearbox
I re-flashed the computer last week and fired it up to test the computer. It ran rough, and when I plugged in the laptop it showed an injector circuit fault. I’ve had exactly the same fault before when a fuse went on the Camaro, so I got all the fuses out one by one and tested them but none were gone. I had the dash back off again and checked the plugs were seated into the computer properly, still the same problem. After a load more checking and double checking I found a loose injector plug. What a pain in the ass. With the dash back in again, and no faults showing, I took it round the block for a test drive. The brakes were poor, so I took it easy. On the industrial estate at the back of the house it got a long enough run to shift up to 3rd, or it would have if it didnt slip and go nowhere when it came out of 2nd.
On Saturday I had a big tidy up and put all my tools in the new toolbox I got off ebay. It’s on wheels, so Tommy had to do a few laps of the house sat on top of it first. It’s nice to have everything in one place for the first time. On Sunday I got the car up on stands to get at the gearbox wiring, and tested the 2-3 shift solenoid circuit wires. Nothing wrong, so I put the extra pin in the plug for the PWM clutch while I was in there, plugged it all back in and tested it again. Sadly it’s exactly the same, so I guess it’s a gearbox rebuild coming up. While I was under there I also put the padded P clips on the battery cable and called it quits.
Computer Mk II
The Camaro got a new engine and trans a few weeks back, and the PCM needed to be re-flashed for the later trans. Unfortunately the extension that the laptop was plugged into wasn’t switched on and I ended up with a blank PCM when the battery went on the laptop. The camaro was at Zannetec so the ’55 had to give up it’s PCM to get it moving. I ordered another one from the US and some new flash chips to fix the dead one and waited patiently. The truck was also coming home from having it’s body blasted so the garage needed a massive tidy up which I did the next weekend.
With enough space to get the truck in it wasn’t so easy to work on the ’55. After a bit more tidying up and moving round I could move the truck out and have more space than I did a few weeks back. The PCM turned up this week, so out went the truck and I set about re-fitting it. I decided to turn it the other way up to give me more clearance on the wiper drive, and ground the fins off so that it would fit tighter to the dash. A new clamp on the top and I put it all back together again. I couldn’t test fire it as Tommy was asleep so I wired up the stereo while I waited. With that done and Tommy up I turned the key, the fuel pump whirred and nothing happened. The starter circuit wasn’t working. I decided to re-do it from scratch as I wasn’t happy with how it was done. After a few hours of messing I had one less relay and was ready to go. A turn of the key and it fired right up. It needs the ’55’s tune stuck on there now and I’m back where I was a few weeks ago.
And Now, Wipers
I got wiper blades this week and a quick check showed they didn’t fit the arms that I had. After a bit of grinding down to size I fitted them but didn’t tighten them fully just in case the sweep was wrong. I flipped them outwards as well and switched them on to check. There was a horrble crunch as the passenger side arm hit the body and popped off leaving a nice little gouge in the paint. Another check with the arm off and the wiper was running backwards on that side. I guessed the Rain Gear wiper transmission must have dropped down when I was fitting it and I hadn’t noticed.
With the clock out on the passenger side, I found that the arm was indeed upside down. I loosened it up and flipped it the right way round before putting it back together. A quick check of the wipers (this time with rags under them just in case) and it was working as it should. I took them back off again and ran some tubing for the washers before putting it all back together nice and tight. The messing about with the wipers had moved the vent hoses and the wipers now hit them. After a load more messing about I had the hoses and the engine computer far enough away that they shouldn’t cause any hassle. At that point Tommy came out looking for me and wanted to beep the horn of the car. After about twenty goes I was concerned for my neighbours and my sanity, so disconnected the battery and called it a day. Just as well as he tried to turn the keys when the horn didn’t work any more.
Battery Stays Still
I set out today to do some little bits and bobs as I didn’t have much time this weekend. I drove it out and turned it round first so that I could work on the other side of the car. First thing was the missing bit of trim on the wing, no real drama there. Next was a few adjustments to the trunk lock to get it to sit a little better. Unfortunately I managed to chip the edge of the paint while I was doing it. Yet another battle scar, and it’s not on the road!. I was running out of time so I decided to put the battery hold down that my mate John gave me. 
I think I must be getting the hot-rod bug as I decided it wasn’t pretty enough despite the fact it will ultimately be covered over. I made a cardboard template for the rough shape that I wanted and folded it to get the correct length. Once that was done, I transferred it to a strip of aluminium and started to fold it up. After a lot of careful checking and re-shaping I rounded off the corners and sanded the scratches out before giving it a quick polish. Two stainless bolts and the battery isn’t going anywhere. It will have an MDF cover over the whole thing so I don’t lose any trunk space. Another little job off the list.
It’s Back Alive
I’d bought some more ally 90’s to finish off the plumbing again so with the intercooler hung on it’s new brackets I measured up to cut them down to suit. Once I was happy that it would work I started clamping it all up before checking that it cleared the wheels. It took a lot of adjusting to get it really tight and now has about half an inch on full lock so that should be fine. I left the intercooler on the higher of the two bracket holes so if it scrapes anything it’ll be the chassis first. I think I’ll get some mesh to save it from stones too. A quick test drive confirmed it was all fine, and I managed to accelerate at .06G when I blipped it too. Sounds impressive anyway. I also discovered the one way valve on the brake booster is not working when I lost the brakes. Wont do that again in a hurry.
Next on the list was to tidy up as the garage was filthy. With the worst of it done I wired in the AC/Heater system earth and the compressor control wires out into the engine bay. The seats were swapped left to right so needed the seat belt mounts swapping which was easy enough to do apart from a little trimming of the covers here and there. I got the back seat down from the roof and gave it a clean before putting it in, then got all the garnish mouldings down and fitted the front and rear on the drivers side. I’m hoping to get it watertight before the MOT test as it has been raining here for what seems like months. With a bit of luck I’ll get the other side done when I turn the car around.
Intercooler Again
When I drove the car the other day I heard a rubbing noise when the car was on full lock. I had a quick look and couldn’t see anything so planned to have a proper look around later. I was thinking about it the other day and decided it was probably the intercooler plumbing. When I had a look at it I found some rub marks on them and the wheels now just touched it on full lock. When I did this initially the car must have needed to settle as I checked it at full lock. I pulled all the tubing out and started again from scratch. With a cut down aluminium 90 instead of the rubber elbow I got a tighter run that cleared the wheel on lock. 
While I had it all in bits I decided to re-mount the intercooler so I could get a few more inches of clearance. It was mounted tight against the core support bracket so my only option was to cut off the rest of the front panel support and have it at a shallower angle. The front of the intercooler was mounted on a short tab from the front panel, and I wasn’t convinced a longer one wouldn’t sag. I decided to make a tab from a piece of steel bar to mount it to the bumper bracket. My newish pillar drill decided to pack in at this point which made it all take twice as long as it should. After a lot of messing about I mounted the intercooler and it fitted perfectly, about an inch or so higher than the bottom of the chassis crossmember. Even though nobody will see it I rounded the edges over before I painted them, I’m in danger of doing stuff properly at this rate. 
First Proper Drive
I finally got the prop re-made to fit (don’t ask) and the limited slip oil so I got it up on stands and fitted the prop and filled it up. I fired it up and put it into gear and gave it a bit of throttle to make sure it was changing gear. It didn’t. I plufged the laptop in and it was showing a very low speed from the speed sensor, even tho it had been re-flashed with the correct gearing adjustment. After checking the wiring to the sensor which all seemed OK, I pulled the sensor out and gave it a clean. That made no difference, and it was setting some fault codes for the gearbox. After a lot of research, I found that the gearbox that had been sold to me as a ’94 was in fact a ’97. They use a different base program on the PCM, and it uses a PWM solenoid for the torque converter clutch.
I was pretty gutted at the thought of having to pull the box and swap it over for the spare one I had, so spent the next day researching what the physical differences were. It turns out I could use a ’95 base (the ’96 and ’97 are different engine computer wise) and it needs an extra wire run from the PCM to the box to control the clutch. I downloaded a base tune for a Camaro, made a few changes and flashed it on. With it back on stands, the speed got up to around 40mph without much effort. The rear brakes were not stopping the wheels turning, so I needed to bleed them properly. As I was about to start doing it, my mate Leigh turned up so he got roped in to pump the brakes while I bled all 4 wheels. With it all done, I realised it was ready to go. I got it off the stands, and drove it out of the garage shaking like a leaf. A quick drive forward and back and it all worked but I was out of fuel again. After getting some more, I got Lisa to video of it which you can watchhere! After all the work it was more than worth it. It’s an amazing feeling. I didnt want to push it too hard without getting some decent data off the datalogger just in case I’m running really lean somewhere along the line, so thats next. What a truly great moment in a project.
